


wouldn't say that you saved me, but the truth is...

by morganoconner



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Emotional Baggage, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-23 15:58:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8333653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganoconner/pseuds/morganoconner
Summary: Kent knows he's a shitty person. He thought Alexei had finally gotten that memo, but apparently not.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tiptoe39](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiptoe39/gifts).



> For Tippy, because she's a fabulous human being who always deserves nice things. With many thanks to Hils for looking this over for me, because writing in new fandoms is scary. Love you both lots! Thank you for dragging me into this fandom against my will. It's one of the best things to ever happen to me, not least because it gave me back my love for hockey after so many years. ♥
> 
> This is set post-3.08 of the Check Please comic. This is definitely not the first pairing I thought I would write in this fandom. I don't know why these things still surprise me. /o\

Like most teams, the Aces like to celebrate a win, and nothing is better than a comeback win in the last minute of play. Spirits are high in the locker room, and every guy on the team has come to slap Kent on the shoulder (or the ass) for his game-winning shot against the Falc’s goalie.

Kent has never felt less like celebrating a win in his life. It was a dirty shot and he knows it, and yeah, he’s taken bad shots before to win a game, but never so viciously as this time. Never to the point where he almost took out a player just to get some sort of twisted revenge on someone else.

He hated himself, well before Alexei lifted him out of that pile-up and spit “rat” in his face.

So he begs off the club with the other guys and instead finds himself in a lonely bar where nobody seems to know or care who he is, and he can hide in a shadowy corner and nurse a whisky he doesn’t really want to drink anyway. He feels pathetic, which is fitting because he is pathetic.

He feels worse when someone plops themselves down into the rickety chair across from him and almost makes Kent spit out his drink in surprise.

“Kenny,” Alexei says, raising a thick eyebrow in clear disapproval at Kent’s general state of being right now.

“Hey Tater,” Kent mutters, slinking down in his seat as much as he can without actually crawling under the table.

Alexei makes a low sound of disapproval. “I tell you, you call me Alyosha. Tell you so many times. Never listen, Kenny.”

In spite of himself, Kent smiles a little. Alexei has been Tater since they both went to the Aces, Kent as first round pick, Alexei as third. It’s hard to think of him as anything else, especially since the trade, when now they only talk sporadically and only see each other a few times a year.

“Sorry,” he says, then, resigned, “What are you doing here?”

“Know you be here,” Alexei says with a gusty sigh. “So predictable.”

Kent would be surprised if it were anyone else. “Did you even bother to try the club first?” he asks.

Alexei snorts. “Why try club? Know you be here, moping.”

“I’m not moping,” Kent says, grumpy because yeah, he is. He is totally moping.

“Uh huh.” Alexei steals his drink, downing the rest of it in one swallow and making a face. “Even drinking mope drink. Taught you better than that, didn’t I?” He shakes his head at Kent sadly. “Forget everything since I leave.”

Kent looks away, because he doesn’t like to think about Alexei leaving, even though it’s been years since it happened.

"Why you here moping?" Alexei asks, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms, _clearly_ already knowing the answer. "Should be out, party with team, celebrate big win, yes?"

"Yeah, sure," Kent says. He wishes he still had his drink so he'd have something to do with his hands.

"I play you before, Kenny," Alexei says and god damn it, now he sounds gentle. Kent was really hoping to escape this conversation unscathed, but a gentle Alexei is a persistent Alexei. "Many times. Not like that."

"A win is a win, right?" Kent shrugs. "You know me. The win is what matters."

Kent just stares at him, clearly unimpressed with this answer. It's supremely unfair that he knows Kent well enough to be able to see through his bullshit. Finally, Alexei shakes his head again and sighs. "You bitter about Zimmboni, yes? That he not choose Aces."

It's like a slap in the face, a kick in the nuts, and a bucket of ice water all at once, and Kent's fists clench where they're still resting on the table. He swallows. "It shouldn't matter. It _doesn't_ matter." It can't matter.

"Yes, I see that." Alexei says, rolling his eyes.

"Fuck you," Kent spits. "What, you think you know me? You think just 'cause you know some of my past, that makes you special, that gives you a right –"

Alexei's hand darts out, grabbing Kent's just as he's pushing back from the table, and he freezes. "Kenny. Stop."

Kent doesn't want to stop. Kent wants to run as far and as fast as he can from this bar, from this city, from this _man_ , before he gives away even more of the shattered pieces of himself Jack left behind and there's just nothing left.

"Kenny," Alexei says again, quieter now. "Kenny, please. Stay. Talk. I listen."

Slowly, Kent allows himself to sink back into the chair, the fight draining out of him like it was never there. He wants to cover his face, hide for just a second to get his breath back, but Alexei hasn't let go of his hand, and there's something settling about the way his thumb brushes back and forth against the inside of Kent's wrist.

"I just…I…" Kent doesn't want to talk about this. He never has before, he's not even sure he knows _how_. "He was my best friend, you know?" Alexei nods, because Kent has told him at least that much. "He can't even look at me anymore. We didn't talk for so long, until I went to that fucking party, and then…" He looks away, because it's not worth thinking about that anymore. "And then today, his stupid media scrum, and the way he played, he just…he doesn't even care anymore. He doesn't fucking care, and I can't fucking _stop_ , and I thought maybe if he came to the Aces we could get some of what we had back, right? We could be friends again. He was _everything_ to me, and he doesn't fucking care at _all_ , and I took a dirty shot because I had to, I just. I had to beat him."

"It help?" Alexei asks, squeezing Kent's hand to gentle the question.

"No," Kent mutters, because of course it didn't. He takes a breath. "He was everything, Tater. He was the only one who cared about me at all." He scowls at the table, trying to ignore the ache in his chest that never really goes away but doesn't usually seem this bad, either.

"Maybe at time, yes," Alexei says, slowly. He lowers his head, putting himself back in Kent's line of vision and forcing Kent to meet his eyes. "Not know you then, can't say for sure. But know is not true now."

Kent swallows. "I know, I mean. There's the team. They wouldn't have made me captain if they didn't at least trust me, right? And. Well." He stops, because aside from the Aces, it's hard to think of anyone who might actually care enough to count.

"And me," Alexei says, smiling too wide for how serious he sounds. "You know why I tell you call me Alyosha, before I leave for Falconers? That name is…" He pauses, brows scrunching the way they do whenever he can't find the words he wants in English. "Is…special name. For close friends. Family. For…special someone. Not name for just anyone."

"Oh." Kent didn't know that. That was definitely never explained to him, because if it had been, he would definitely have made more of an effort to listen to the request. His heart is doing something funny in his chest, pounding like he's about to score another game-winner goal even though he's about as far from the ice as he can get right now. "I…" He stops, aware that he's flushed and probably gaping at Alexei in a pretty unattractive manner. "Um. Which one am I?" he finally asks.

Alexei grins shyly at him. "Kenny. How you not know this? I think I so obvious. But maybe you just a little dumb."

Kent _is_ dumb, there's no question about that, but his emotions have also had enough of this roller coaster for one night. He's not sure how much more he can take, but he has to ask again, has to be sure he's not misunderstanding. "Which one am I, Alyosha?"

Alexei reaches out with his free hand to take Kent's, so that now he's holing both of Kent's hands across the table in this dingy bar where anyone might look over and see and recognize them. "You all three."

"Oh." Kent breathes it out on a sigh, but it feels like it's been punched from him. He feels like he just took a check, one of those crazy ones where he got flipped onto the ice and the world is left spinning around him for a few dazed moments.

And Alexei isn't wrong. It's not like there weren't clues. Lingering touches during movie night, long hugs outside of a hockey player's normal socially acceptable celly, traded gazes so full of warmth he thought he might burst. But Kent had chalked it all up to Alexei's general personality and maybe a bit of culture difference, never mind that the Russian had never done those things with the rest of the team.

Yeah, Kent is dumb. Kent is very, very dumb.

"Can we –" He stops and clears his throat when the words come out gravel-rough and a little choked, barely intelligible. "Can we maybe…talk somewhere else?" Because he's feeling too flayed open right now for this grungy little bar, he wants someplace quiet, someplace safe, somewhere he can have a little bit of a breakdown without worrying about prying eyes and gossip rags. Somewhere, maybe, Alexei can hold onto him until he's feeling more solid and stable.

"Come," Alexei says, tugging gently on Kent's hand as he stands. "We go to my place."

Yes. That sounds good. That sounds perfect, really, partly because it's the last place any of his team will look for him, but mostly because it's Alexei and right now any of his ideas would sound like the best thing ever.

Kent's not drunk but he feels like it, a little, and apparently Alexei's place is close enough to walk to because he doesn't call for a cab, just keeps hold of Kent's hand and leads him block after block away from the bar while Kent tries to remember how to breathe.

They're just crossing the pedestrian bridge into the west side of the city when Kent stops. "Wait, wait. Alyosha, stop."

Alexei does, turning a quizzical look onto Kent, who tugs him closer. "Kenny?"

"I just…I need to…" This isn't something that can wait, because all of a sudden Kent feels clearer than he has all night, maybe all year, and everything inside him is screaming that he needs to do this now. So he waits until Alexei is right in front of him, and then he pushes himself up on tiptoes, because Alexei is still huge, still towers over him, but then Alexei meets him halfway and they're kissing. And god, it's easy like it's something they've done forever. Kent's hand finds the back of Alexei's neck and he presses himself closer, breathing in Alexei like he's a drug. Maybe he is. Kent's head is doing that spinny thing again.

It's Alexei who breaks the kiss, gently, soothing the ache of separation by pressing his lips softly to Kent's forehead and cupping his face in one big hand. "So long, wanted you to do that," he murmurs, lowering his forehead to Kent's with a soft sigh.

"I'm such a mess." It's all Kent can think to say. "I'm such a bad idea, you have no idea, why would you even –"

"You not be mess forever," Alexei says, soft and sure like it's somehow a fact. "And meantime…you _my_ mess, okay?"

Kent swallows, keeping his eyes closed against the flood of emotions trying to sweep him away. Nothing exists outside of this bubble. It doesn't even matter that he or Alexei could be recognized at any moment, because right now, Kent feels grounded for the first time in over a year, for the first time since the last time he saw Jack, and that means something. He doesn't know what, not completely, but definitely _something_. "Okay," he says, and smiles helplessly when Alexei kisses him again.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from "Broken" by Adam Lambert and Tritonal. It's basically my Patater song of choice.


End file.
